It is 2019: How would you update the city?

[Clave Dark 5]

16 hours ago, Oneirohero said:

So the whole idea is that buildings have a sense of space, depth and purpose and become less of the background boxes they currently are.

I actually haven't checked this myself, but I've seen people say how most of the buildings really are just backdrops because of their scale, like this one's way too skinny on one side and has a footprint of only 120X20 yards, that sort of thing.  When actually measured out, they really are pretty uselessly-sized structures, but as mere backdrops for us to zoom around, the scale is fine, if "unobtrusively  wrong."  Trying to punch stuff into them like windows you can see in and so on might make their wrongness not so unobtrusive.

[srmalloy]

17 hours ago, Lost Ninja said:

Hmm a bit of transgender content... I like the way you think... 😉

No; it's apparently something that I, and I alone, complained to Positron about during the entire life of CoH -- the second time I asked him about it, not too long before the announcement of the shutdown, he mentioned that someone else had commented on the same thing, and that made it something they might have to look into (since I knew I'd been the 'other one', that makes me the only one to complain).

 

The International Association of Marine Aids to Navigation and Lighthouse Authorities maintains the Maritime Buoyage System, an international standard for the navigation marks used in ports. This specifies things like the colors and shapes used for the buoys that mark ship channels, hazards, etc.; if you travel to Independence Port and go up to the big doors in the War Wall at the NE of the zone, then turn and look west, you'll see two lines of buoys, one along the left side of the channel, and one on the right. These are called 'lateral marks', and indicate the left and right sides of a deep-water channel. In Region B, where the US is, as you're sailing into a port, the buoys on the right side of the channel are red and the buoys on the left side of the channel are green (the origin of the mnemonic 'Red Right Returning'). The red-and-white vertically-striped buoy, which is the only type of buoy seen in and around Paragon City, means "clear water, deep-draft vessels may pass on any side", and generally are used to indicate the middle of a channel when the channel is very wide. If you look at the docks around the N end of Founder's Falls, you'll see several of these buoys parked ten feet away from docks. Southeast of the ferry in Talos Island, there's another buoy parked about ten feet from the corner of a concrete pier. All told, there are only four or five buoys that are appropriately positioned to be center-channel markers.

[biostem]

Weren't there talks, (from the devs or in-universe), about finally bringing down the war-walls?  In general, it'd be nice to not have to zone-zone-zone quite so much - perhaps more dynamic loading of game instances and open areas.  It'd also be nice to have places like office buildings or warehouses updated to have more sensible and less frustrating layouts.  In a more general sense, I'd love to see contacts and other such notable people in the world be more dynamic;  Add more instances where you meet your contact inside of missions, or where missions aren't just "go to point X and click/defeat/rescue object or person Y".  Maybe make bus stations usable for fast travel within a zone and such, too.

[Voltor]

nah, let's leave the war walls up. 

 

Can energy melee's energy transfer be reverted to its original version or else have the original version in power customization?

[Lost Ninja]

10 hours ago, srmalloy said:

 

Actually I knew that as I have seen you mention it before... I just have a thing for playing with words... 😉

[THEDarkTyger]

On 10/17/2019 at 10:07 AM, moss04 said:

Add a floating Baby-Trump giant monster event.

Not that I disagree with the sentiment, but politics are unnecessarily inflammatory. I'd prefer to keep it outta here.

[Nericus]

On 10/19/2019 at 4:22 PM, THEDarkTyger said:

Not that I disagree with the sentiment, but politics are unnecessarily inflammatory. I'd prefer to keep it outta here.

Agreed.

[Techwright]

On 10/16/2019 at 10:56 PM, Harry_Canyon said:

I would replace those dated crt monitors in office cubicles, and maybe a new car model or two.

I can definitely see that.

On 10/17/2019 at 1:03 AM, Coyotedancer said:

We've had bus stops this whole time... so I'd add a bus or two.

That would make sense.  Maybe even a bus depot in some zone, like say Skyway.

 

On 10/17/2019 at 12:00 PM, roleki said:

Personally (personally) I like CoH just the way it is; as someone else said, to my mind it's like a snapshot in time.

 

That said, in the city spaces themselves it would be neat to have more variety in NPCs/vehicles/spaces - kids, dogs, ambulances, bikes, street vendors, taco trucks, so on and so forth.  

 

It would also be interesting to have a 'museum' built in the fashion of Wentworths (open to walk into, visible from outside) where current leaders in given stats could have 'statues' of themselves commemorating that achievement; like say, whoever has accumlated the most XP debt or healed the most damage or whatever on the server, kind of like leaderboards but a little more fitting in a town that has a 70' statue of a guy holding a planet outside City Hall.

 

Stuff like that.

Several expressed similar sentiment (keeping a "snapshot in time").  As a clarification, I'm not asking the current team to do all this, or even any of it.  I'm inquiring for fun about "what if" scenarios, and I'm essentially suggesting the same pattern the NCSoft devs did of periodically updating the game in various ways.  The idea of Paragon City as its own "snapshot in time" is fine, and has precedence in the superhero genre.  Consider the 1989 "Batman" movie.  Gotham was a blend of elements of both 1939 (first appearance of Batman) and 50 years later, creating a unique world.  In the recent "Arrowverse", one of the alternate Earths (Earth 3?) was likewise a blend of 1930's elements and modern ones.   In a "what if" scenario, additions integrated into CoH, while keeping the original material (like flat screen monitors next to CRT) would essentially create that same effect, though on a less pronounced scale of 16 years, rather than 50.   But if your take on it is a static 2012 look, that's totally fine.  

 

On 10/17/2019 at 12:17 PM, PSLAnimal said:

Honestly, I can think of a lot of different things I'd rather see the Homecoming team focus on.

Again, this is a "what if" scenario for brainstorming fun, and I'm not stating these are things the Homecoming team should focus on.

On 10/17/2019 at 2:16 PM, Frostbiter said:

Add some coffee shops. Paragon City has a noticeable lack of them. Coffee, coffee, coffee,coffee,coffee,coffee,coffee,coffee,.

Hmm, looks like you're ready for a cup of decaf.  LOL.  😄  But yes,  coffee shops and even a few tea shops would make the city interesting.

On 10/18/2019 at 7:51 PM, biostem said:

Weren't there talks, (from the devs or in-universe), about finally bringing down the war-walls?  In general, it'd be nice to not have to zone-zone-zone quite so much - perhaps more dynamic loading of game instances and open areas.  It'd also be nice to have places like office buildings or warehouses updated to have more sensible and less frustrating layouts.  In a more general sense, I'd love to see contacts and other such notable people in the world be more dynamic;  Add more instances where you meet your contact inside of missions, or where missions aren't just "go to point X and click/defeat/rescue object or person Y".  Maybe make bus stations usable for fast travel within a zone and such, too.

Yes, I believe there were such talks.  Certainly they at least need to be upgraded, as every Ritki attack now manages to drop the walls.  From a lore standpoint, they're not really doing their job anymore.

[Yomo Kimyata]

Every building is a Chase bank, a Verizon Wireless store, or is empty.

[Odhinn]

I actually like how Paragon City is in a time frame / setting of its own. To me feel it more immersive than trying to a particular era. The same thing is done well in the Incredibles and Tim Burton Batman movies. If I were to make changes I would make the stuff that is intended to be high tech more so.

[BuzzKilla]

Get rid of the paperboys, does anyone read newspapers anymore? Poor kid would be out of a job though 😉   I do like ithe game as is though, it is so nostalgic for me. Sometimes I just fly around in zones like the Hollows and Perez Park for old times sake. Unfortunately most of the time I am the only one there, it's kind of sad really 😞 No one does lower level missions teams anymore.

[Clave Dark 5]

4 hours ago, arielx said:

Get rid of the paperboys, does anyone read newspapers anymore? Poor kid would be out of a job though 😉   I do like ithe game as is though, it is so nostalgic for me. Sometimes I just fly around in zones like the Hollows and Perez Park for old times sake. Unfortunately most of the time I am the only one there, it's kind of sad really 😞 No one does lower level missions teams anymore.

Make your own team for them!  DfB gets dull in and of itself.  Invite any level of player to come along, even higher level ones as they may have not even seen Perez Park since Homecoming opened up.

[EmmySky]

I like the time capsule feel but I could do with some open 'shop' areas like coffee shop, donut shop, diner...places people could gather to chat other than at trainers or under Atlas.  I don't do a lot of the RPG part but this is also an MMO (I don't do that a lot either), some thematic gathering places might be nice.  Definitely keep the architecture and feel of the time period, though, as that's part of the charm of Paragon.

[BuzzKilla]

8 hours ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

Make your own team for them!  DfB gets dull in and of itself.  Invite any level of player to come along, even higher level ones as they may have not even seen Perez Park since Homecoming opened up.

Yes you are right. I have been thinking of doing that but don't have the confidence I used to. I used to be a SG co leader "back in the day". Now half the time I am trying to keep up with the chat lol. I think I can handle running missions tho. Good idea! 🙂

[CorvusBC]

I'd fill the blue caves in with concrete. And get some office building designs that make sense.

[boggo2300]

1 hour ago, Dysmal said:

I'd fill the blue caves in with concrete. And get some office building designs that make sense.

and fit inside the buildings they are supposed to be in...

[Lunchmoney]

On 10/18/2019 at 4:45 AM, Heraclea said:

 

 

ALSO: "Phoebas" grates every time I read it.  It's Phoebus.

Phoebas was a priestess of Phoebus.

So this might be intentional.

[intussusceptor]

Yes, a few spontaneous ideas I got (both good and bad stuff):

Coffee shops, where you can enter, and get missions from a contact working with laptop.
Yoga studios, preferable with some ashtanga yoga poses as emotes added.
Hospitals crowded with patients and staff.

Student protests at campus, demanding trigger warnings and safe spaces for eating laundry detergents etc.

Some walkers glued to smartphones.

Protesting neighbors near constructions (with perhaps a zone event to stir up the protest).
Antivax protests.

Luddites protesting 5G.

[MetaVileTerror]

"Some walkers glued to smartphones."

 . . . what does it say about me that it took me nearly a minute to /stop/ visualizing:  https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3d/Walker._frame.jpg with a cellphone literally glued on it?

[EmmySky]

28 minutes ago, MetaVileTerror said:

"Some walkers glued to smartphones."

 . . . what does it say about me that it took me nearly a minute to /stop/ visualizing:  https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3d/Walker._frame.jpg with a cellphone literally glued on it?

Ok I did the same thing with the rationalization that old folks (like my mom) cant use the walker and phone at the same time (like my mom).  It took me til just now to read your post and realize maybe the poster wasnt refering to the aging CoH player base lol

Edited October 26, 2019 by EmmySky

[intussusceptor]

4 hours ago, EmmySky said:

Ok I did the same thing with the rationalization that old folks (like my mom) cant use the walker and phone at the same time (like my mom).  It took me til just now to read your post and realize maybe the poster wasnt refering to the aging CoH player base lol

Yes, should be pedestrians 😉

[Clave Dark 5]

On 10/25/2019 at 8:40 AM, arielx said:

Yes you are right. I have been thinking of doing that but don't have the confidence I used to. I used to be a SG co leader "back in the day". Now half the time I am trying to keep up with the chat lol. I think I can handle running missions tho. Good idea! 🙂

I used to at least run pick-up groups but I don't feel I know enough to do so well yet either, so I know the feeling.

[Techwright]

On 10/25/2019 at 1:58 AM, Clave Dark 5 said:

Make your own team for them!  DfB gets dull in and of itself.  Invite any level of player to come along, even higher level ones as they may have not even seen Perez Park since Homecoming opened up.

There's also the selling point of badges for completing all NPC-issued missions in a zone.  Why we don't see that being pushed in LFG chat, I'm don't know, but I'd probably enlist if I was reminded that these missions would drive me closer to completing the badge.

On 10/26/2019 at 5:22 AM, intussusceptor said:

Yes, a few spontaneous ideas I got (both good and bad stuff):

Coffee shops, where you can enter, and get missions from a contact working with laptop.
Yoga studios, preferable with some ashtanga yoga poses as emotes added.
Hospitals crowded with patients and staff.

Student protests at campus, demanding trigger warnings and safe spaces for eating laundry detergents etc.

Some walkers glued to smartphones.

Protesting neighbors near constructions (with perhaps a zone event to stir up the protest).
Antivax protests.

Luddites protesting 5G.

I like your ideas. (some I was even LOL over) The yoga bit reminded me that maybe a chiropractor or two might not be a bad thing.  As to the "walkers glued to smartphones", I'd not mind seeing the streetside purse snatcher scenario played out with a victim trying to tug their expensive smartphone or tablet back from a thug.  As to hospitals, I work in one that has had addition after addition tacked on for 100 years, and the sprawling, twisted-corridor result would be perfect for an instanced mission.  Sadly, we have shoe-box shaped hospitals in-game.

[Locsmith]

Please, let me land on and ride the blimp in Atlas Park!  The first thing i tried when i got flight!

 

And by extension, the various boats around Talos Island!

[Clave Dark 5]

On 10/29/2019 at 8:38 PM, Techwright said:

There's also the selling point of badges for completing all NPC-issued missions in a zone.  Why we don't see that being pushed in LFG chat, I'm don't know, but I'd probably enlist if I was reminded that these missions would drive me closer to completing the badge.

... I didn't even know there were badges for that!

 

And I'm with you Locksmith, I wanna ride the blimp!